The invention relates generally to the insertion of needles into tissue. Generally, physicians use medical ultrasound machines to visualize where to place a needle into tissue. The needle may be placed either into blood vessels, near nerves, into amniotic fluid, or for chorionic villus sampling as examples.
There is a need in medicine to know the location of the needle during its insertion into tissue to properly locate the needle where desired and to avoid placement of the needle where it may cause unwanted damage.
There is a known problem in the prior art that the needle may or may not be difficult to visualize using ultrasound. For example, the degree of obesity of a patient, varied anatomy of patients, and different practitioner's skill levels affect needle visualization. The ultrasound gives us pictures that are black and white, or gray scale.
The use of regional anesthesia is becoming increasingly popular, as it is associated with less blood loss, less blood clots, less stress hormones produced for surgery, decreased recovery times, less post-operative pain, and less nausea. However, administration of regional anesthetics can be a difficult skill to master, particularly for older generation physicians who have less familiarity with ultrasound devices.
There have been attempts in the prior art to make a needle more visible, such as laser etching the needle to make it more visible in black and white. However, even more visualization is desired.
There is a need for better visualization of the needle to achieve more accurate needle placement, avoiding injury to neighboring structures, and to allow more successful needle placement.
There is a need for the cost of an improved needle to be comparable to a standard needle.
There is a need for an improved needle that is meant for single patient use, namely, one that is disposable.